Fundamentals of Maintenance Planning Series
By Daryl Mather

Few tools are as useful to managing the maintenance workload and effectiveness as the Maintenance Backlog. In many companies today management of the maintenance backlog has been neglected. As a result they are generally drowning in their own data. A poorly managed system has a dramatic effect on the entire delivery of maintenance services.

Although the situation may appear random and chaotic, there are several common symptoms of poor backlog management. From my observations of various maintenance demanding industries, these may include:

·        Many duplicate works orders. This is one of the main issues causing waste in this area. Particularly if undiscovered they can result in wasted resources investigating already completed tasks. There are also the effects of re-ordering un-required materials and additional planning effort.

·        Non-standardized free text entries. Affecting future analysis and continuous improvement. This can also lead to confusion in planning and execution of works.

·        No indication of forward resource requirements. Giving only best guess indications as to the true manning levels required.

·        Poor coding of work orders (No business rules to guide these) Affecting the future analysis and continuous improvement function. This can contribute to important works being buried among the work order listing.

·        Little focus on priorities, many un-prioritized work orders. This results in corrective actions on the whim either the supervisor, or section manager. As there is nothing substantial to use as a guide, or give a rating relevant to other backlog works.

·        Many tasks not kept in the backlog system. Maintained in lists external to the corporate system. Faith in the backlog system, and the maintenance delivery systems in general, are eroded.

·        Un-required works passing through the work order system, resulting in unnecessary expenditure.

As well as all of these issues, an accurately managed backlog is the precursor to effective planning and scheduling systems, which is a key driver of labor productivity.

Gaining control of the maintenance backlog is initially a difficult task. Requiring a great deal of effort and process development. Keeping it under control is the product of correctly targeted systems applied in a disciplined manner by skilled planners, supervisors and all involved in the work order process.

A correctly maintained backlog system will provide many benefits to the organisation. The system has control over the quality of tasks to be performed, quality of data used in this execution and the quality of data returning to the system or files for future analysis or improvement. Maintenance cannot move past the reactive stage without a firm control over this area.

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